


Nazpsad

by mysterymind277



Series: Children of Heaven [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Heaven, Kid Fic, Sibling Love, young!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterymind277/pseuds/mysterymind277
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The young angels play-fight, while the older angels train. In preparation for what, Castiel isn't sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nazpsad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartequals (savvygambols)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvygambols/gifts).



> Welcome to Part 3 of Children of Heaven! I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> This was written for heartequals (sorry it's so late!) who asked for Michael or Anna. 
> 
> This is set after Lucifer fell but before Gabriel left.

“Angels are warriors. It is our sole duty to protect Heaven, our home, and all the knowledge and power that lies therein. This is why you are here. This is why, today, you will pick up your swords and fight for the first time. Good luck, Castiel.” Anna says, stepping down from her pedestal, wings aloft.

Castiel looks up from where he is kneeling. “You forgot the part about ‘honouring the name of our Father’.”

“Oh, yeah.” Anna takes a step backwards. “And you will honour the name of our Father, and stuff.” 

“Anna! He doesn’t say ‘stuff’.”

“He does too. I heard him, when Balthazar was knighted. He said ‘By the Holy Order of the Heavenly stuff’. And anyway, I’m not Anna, I’m Michael, and you’re not supposed to interrupt when you’re getting knighted.”

“Sorry, Michael.” Castiel mutters, unconvinced.

“You are forgiven, brother.” Anna says, in what she hopes is an imperious and awe-inspiring voice. “And now you are a Warrior of God. Amen.”

Castiel almost corrects her again, but remembers that Anna is the oldest and it was her idea to play ‘Angels getting Knighted’ in the first place.

They are playing outside the Library, a great marble expanse of pillars and ancient tomes, the palace of the Metatron and his garrison of scholarly angels. Some juvenile angels visit the Library regularly, to do their lessons and research their sigils. However, Castiel is comparatively coarse and avoids his lessons with a success rate that Gabriel is rightly proud of. The scholars of the Library are Castiel’s natural opposites and therefore are best avoided. Anna is older, and more sensible, but shares Castiel’s short, blunt opinion on Lessons versus Playing.

This is why they are outside the Library rather than inside it – for politeness’ and their sanity’s sake.

Castiel picks up his sword, which is actually just a stick, but it was the best they could muster up at short notice. Castiel is getting better at Creating, but unfortunately has not reached a stage when he can create intricate play-weapons at will for the youth of the Host. Besides, if anyone caught them playing with a real angel-killing sword he’d probably be strung up by his wings for a week.

At this thought, he turns to the west, where the real warriors are training. That corner of the Host is dark, crackling with lightning and the metallic clang of sword on sword. Eventually, every angel will find themselves there; mock-fighting their brothers for rank and celestial glory.

Occasionally, someone would come away hurt.  

“Balthazar’s over there,” Castiel says, half-anxious, playing briefly forgotten, “And Gabriel, and Raphael, and all the others.”

Anna presses her mouth into an unhappy line, and the pair sit down on the marble steps.

Castiel frowns sullenly. “What are they even training for?” he mutters. The subject of training ties in closely with the ‘duties’ and ‘sacrifices’ that Zachariah is always going on about, and if Castiel is honest he doesn’t like the sound of any of them.   

“To protect heaven, obviously.” Anna sits up a little straighter, as if remembering her birthright all of a sudden. Her grey wings flare a little.

“From what, though?” Castiel can’t think of anyone who would be stupid enough to challenge the might of Heaven’s army.

“I dunno. Leviathans, probably.” Anna shrugs, and her wings shrug too.   

“Oh yeah. Leviathans.” Castiel breathes. Leviathans feature in many an angelic tale, occasionally rising up to munch on cities and beasts and angels, and therefore make brilliant antagonists for any play fight.

“Let’s play Michael and Lucifer versus the Leviathans!” Anna suggests. Castiel’s bad mood lifts instantaneously.

“We need someone to fight.” Castiel says and Anna dashes off. It hadn’t been an order, but even Castiel, naive as he is, has noticed that being a part of the inner household means less legwork for him.

* * *

 

“We’re playing Michael and Lucifer versus Leviathans.” Castiel explains when Anna returns with Inias and Hester, dragged ‘unwillingly’ from one of Zachariah’s lectures.

“Cool!” Inias says, his coppery wings twitching excitedly. “Can I be Mich-“

“No, I’m Michael. I’ve got a sword.” Anna brandishes her stick, which suddenly grows a pretty purple orchid. Hester laughs.

“No, stupid. Like _that_!” The orchid crumbles and is replaced by a bunch of wicked thorns. Anna swings it haphazardly.

“You’ll poke someone’s grace out!” Hester complains, but she doesn’t mean it. Juvenile angels are little if not violent.

Castiel takes up Lucifer’s mantle, and raises his stick against the leviathan hordes.

“ _Parm_ , _siatris_ , _parm_!” he wails, and the leviathans scatter.

There is a brief, satisfying scuffle, which inevitably ends with Inias and Hester begging for mercy on their bellies, waving their tentacles and pincers at the advancing archangels.

“Shall we let them live?” asks Michael, waving his stick vaguely.

“No way! Chop off their heads!” Lucifer kicks out at the nearest Leviathan, who screams convincingly.

“All thirty of them?”

“ALL THIRTY!”

Screeching their most threatening war cries, the archangels dismember the leviathans and scatter the pieces.

“Now it’s our turn to be the archangels!” says Hester after a moment’s ‘playing-dead’, crawling up off the ground and brushing herself down.

“Yeah!” Inias reaches out for the swords, which Anna and Castiel reluctantly hand over, unable to deny the fairness of the situation.

The fight begins anew, only with less screeching and more explosive sound effects, courtesy of Inias. Castiel is in the midst of what he considers to be the best death scene of the day when a harassed voice brings their games to a halt.

“What are you playing at?” the voice snaps. Castiel scrambles gracelessly to his feet, while his companions stumble into awkward gestures of respect that make Castiel’s insides drop to somewhere below his knees. The new arrival is high-ranked.  

He turns, and barely suppresses a squeak of alarm. It’s Michael himself, back early from the training fields, flaming sword and all.

“Well?” Michael asks.

“Um...we were just playing.” Anna stammers. Hester hides the thorny stick behind her back.

“Yeah, we was only playing.” Inias adds, wings drooping under the force of Michael’s disapproval.

Michael folds his arms, glancing at the four diminutive angels before him. “Perhaps you should be playing somewhere else?”

The angels take the hint.

“Yessir! Sorry, sir.” They say hurriedly, pausing just long enough to bow before rushing away. Anna takes hold of Castiel’s arm.

“Come on, Cas, let’s go.” She begins to tug him away, but is stopped.

“You go, Anael. I want to speak to Castiel.” Michael says. He says it gently, but there is no doubt that it is an order.

Anna does not need to be asked twice and scurries off, glancing worriedly over her shoulder as she goes.

* * *

 

Castiel looks down at the floor, wings pressing forwards in his shame. He’s in trouble, he just knows it.

“Look at me, Castiel.”

Castiel looks, and sees strength, maturity and knowledge; unwavering, just Michael who could easily fight off a thousand Leviathan, with or without his sword of Holy Fire.

Castiel wants to be him.

“Am I in trouble?” Castiel asks, trying hard to keep his fear in check.

Michael sounds mildly amused at the idea. “Should you be?”

“No! I didn't do anything. Apart from I did once disturb Zachariah’s studying, but he punished me good for that already.” Castiel admits. Honesty is the best policy, after all.

“Oh, I heard. That’s not why I’m here. I just wanted to ask you how you are.”

Castiel blinks. He’s not sure how to answer.

“Um. I dunno.” He says, without thinking.

“Don’t say ‘dunno’ when someone asks you a question, Castiel. Are you studying?”

“Sorry, Michael. Yes, I’m studying Enochian sigils and celestial bodies and Creating and all kinds of stuff.” Castiel trips over his words in his hurry to repair his mistake.

Michael smiles slightly. “What about training?”

Castiel falters. “I’m too young to get trained.”

“Gabriel began his training at your age.”

“But I’m no archangel, sir.” Castiel cocks his head to the side. “I’d be behind.”

“You may not be an archangel, but from what I’ve heard, you’re special.” Michael says matter-of-factly. Castiel feels a warm glow of pride fill him from toe to wingtip, but quenches it quickly.

“Am I?”

“You were chosen to stand alongside the archangels from the very beginning, Castiel. Surely that makes you special enough?”

“I du- I mean, I’m not sure.” Castiel looks away, back west, where the clouds are blackish-violet and churning.

He is quiet for a moment, and then asks, “Who are we fighting?”

Michael gives him a hard look.

“We aren’t fighting anyone. But one day, we might have to. So we must be ready. We must be strong.”

“We’ve got tonnes of angels already trained, millions and millions of garrisons. I wouldn’t make any difference, not me.” Castiel mutters. Michael hears.

“So what you mean is, that if I were not in the garrison, the garrison would not notice?” he asks. Castiel looks horrified.

“No, not you! They need you. You’re really strong, and fast, and clever, and you could probably win the battle all by yourself! I mean...”

 “But Castiel, that’s the point. No angel can fight alone. Not me, not Raphael, not your Balthazar, not...not anyone. Why do you think we have all these brothers and sisters?” Michael gestures at the sky, where in the dark Castiel can see the light-points of his family moving across the Host. Then Michael turns and kneels down next to Castiel. 

“Every angel is important. Even you.” He taps Castiel’s chest in a deeply uncharacteristic gesture, and Castiel feels a strange rush of fear-admiration-love.

It reminds him of Lucifer, and that is something he thought no angel was capable of doing.

Now that Castiel thinks about it, a lot of Michael reminds him of Lucifer.

“We need you, Castiel.” Michael says. “We all need you.”

Castiel smiles as Michael stands, his white wings vivid against the grey marble floor of the Library.  

“And Castiel?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t skip your lessons. You’ll end up like Gabriel.”

Castiel gulps. “Sorry, sir.”

“Forgiven. _Mozod_ , Castiel.” Michael says, and vanishes before his brother has a chance to reply.

“ _Mozod_.” Castiel mutters redundantly, wandering towards the great Library steps. If Michael is going to be checking in on him, he should probably start studying now.

Castiel is little if not realistic.   

 

**Author's Note:**

> Enochian: 'parm, siatris, parm' means 'run, scorpions, run.' 'Mozod' means 'Joy of God'- it's a formal greeting, kind of like 'Shalom' or 'Live long and Prosper' :D The title 'Napzsad' means 'sword'. 
> 
> I hope you liked it! If there's anything you'd like to see happen, drop me a note :)


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